


I'm Here

by opalgalaxy11



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexual Mike Wheeler, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gay Will Byers, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, Kissing in the Rain, Late Night Conversations, Late at Night, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Protectiveness, Relationship(s), Sad Will Byers, Sneaking Out, Will Byers Is Not Okay, Will Byers Needs a Hug, byeler angst, byler angst, comforting each other in castle byers, pure angst, scared of losing each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 13:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19769002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalgalaxy11/pseuds/opalgalaxy11
Summary: "I'm not gone, Mike."  He said, eyes welling with tears.  "I'm right here.  Listen to me - I never left."mike wheeler can't sleep.  but when he sneaks out to see will, he finds he's still awake too.  kissing, cuddling, angst, and softness in the rain.angsty, fluffy, late night castle byers crying.





	I'm Here

**Author's Note:**

> hi gang! just fair warning this fic starts out kinda rough but i promise you'll get your angst by the middle. thank u for reading and if you enjoyed this be sure to leave a kudos or a comment! :)  
> also p.s. this story is set in the summer between 9th and 10th grade, so one year-ish after the starcourt mall fiasco. they're fifteen/sixteen here.  
> \- opal

Mike was almost asleep.

Well, no he wasn't.

It was one of those nights for him. One of the late summer nights when he couldn't think about anything but the events of seventh grade. The trauma, if you could call it that. He didn't want to call it that. Trauma was a scary word, something with weight. 

But maybe it held weight, what had happened in Hawkins, the Demogorgon and the Mind Flayer and the Upside Down. Most nights, he could ignore it, drift into sleep without wondering if it meant anything. The protectiveness he had felt over Will, the despair in his chest when he’d wondered if any of them would make it home that night a year ago at Starcourt Mall. He didn’t want to think about it. He couldn’t. 

He wasn't gay. He wasn't. He repeated the words, over and over to himself, ignoring the way they made him feel to say. There was no way. And even if he was, what would he even do about it? He was in high school now. Surrounded by people older than him, bigger than him. He saw how they treated the gay kids. That wasn't him.

But then again, he didn't feel like this around other boys. Hell, he didn't even feel like this around El.

It wasn't that he didn't love her. He did, he loved her more than he knew to say. But they'd been on and off for as long as he could remember. And besides, he couldn't know if it was the right TYPE of love, the kind that makes people write books and songs and make movies. Maybe he was ignoring it. Maybe he didn't want to face reality. Or maybe, he hoped, his feelings would just go away. Just disappear.

But he couldn't change, no matter how hard he tried. He couldn't forget the sinking feeling in his chest when he first found out Will was missing, the darkness that enveloped his world in a single second. Imagining doing life without his best friend by his side, it ruined him. He couldn't imagine one minute without Will. Tonight, those old fears were back. 

What the hell was he supposed to do if he lost Will again?

And he knew it hurt Will, God he knew it better than anyone.

But he couldn't feel much of anything anymore.

He tossed and turned for a few more minutes, eventually sitting up on the side of his bed, pulling on an old pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. It was drizzling outside, chilly despite the summer humidity, but he snuck out the window, closing it behind him, sneaking around the side of the house to grab his bike. Not caring about the rain, he straddled the bike seat and started pedaling, his house receding into the distance as he biked down the main road, the same road Will had gone missing on years earlier.

Years. /Years./ It had been years since Will had been lost in the Upside Down, and somehow it still hurt to think about. Will wondered why he didn't want to play Dungeons and Dragons anymore. Why did he think? It had been all they'd talked about that fall of seventh grade, all they'd done together. On the night Will had found himself in the Upside Down, alone and exhausted and terrified, they'd been playing it. The night Mike had thought he might never come home again.

He pedaled harder, legs aching, the rain pattering his round-rimmed glasses, his hair, his hands. The road was dark and seemed never-ending, and he was alone, scared, tired, hurting. 

But he had to get to Will.

He had to. He didn't know why, what mysterious force was propelling him toward the Byers' house at God-knows-what hour of the night. Will was probably asleep soundly, dreaming of someone that wasn't Mike, not worried about what they would do when the summer ended, when the real world came crashing back in. It always did, without fail.

And Will was moving away.

Joyce had broken the news that night, officially, for real. It was happening. It was something Mike didn't know how to wrap his head around, losing his best friend to the next state over. In a year, he'd be biking to someone else's house. The thought ripped through him, nearly knocking him backward. He couldn't let himself get too close again. He couldn't. 

And yet, here he was.

He slowed down as he pedaled towards the Byers' house, dark and full of the sleeping family. He didn't even put his kickstand down, just let his bike fall to the ground as he jumped off, jogging toward the house. The rain was falling heavier, soaking through his hoodie, but he didn't care. He crouched in the mud, making his way around the side of the house to Will's window. But looking in, his bed was empty, his room dark.

Mike knew where to go, almost instinctively. He jogged through the woods behind the house, despite the darkness, he knew the way like the back of his hand. Light spilled out of the cracks in the wooden walls of Castle Byers. /Will./

He pulled the sheet that doubled as a door aside, looking inside the makeshift fort. Knees pulled up to his chest on the ground, eyes choked with tears streaming down his face, sat Will. He looked as beautiful as ever. As desperate as ever. As exhausted as Mike had ever seen him.

He looked up, too tired to even react, too choked up to do anything but choke out a "Mike."

"Will? What's wrong?" Mike asked, softly, ducking down to climb in next to him on the makeshift pillow mattress he'd made. He pulled Will into him, and the younger boy melting at his touch, resting his head on Mike's shoulder as he cried.

"What isn't wrong?" He laughed through his tears, lifting his head to meet Mike's eyes. "I don't want to leave this goddamn town. I don't want to leave you." Mike felt a pang of something in his stomach, something deep, something heart-wrenching. It made him want to hold Will for the rest of his life, to protect him from the world and every monster in it, to tell him how loved he was until he forgot he was ever in that awful place, to make him excited to live again. He wanted Will to feel normal, to feel okay, to feel as amazing as Mike saw him as.

But right now, Will was just crying. Just crying. Tears, streaming down his face, mingled with the raindrops leaking from the roof of Castle Byers, arms wrapped around Mike, head buried in his neck, crying.

Not for the first time, Mike didn't know how to make it better. Not for the first time, Mike made a silent promise to stay by Will's side until he couldn't anymore. 

Slowly, he and Will adjusted themselves on the pillow mattress so that they were laying down, facing each other, fingers intertwined. Will sniffled, a tear dropping sideways on his face, and Mike reached up to brush it away.

"You know it's going to be okay, right?" Mike asked, searching Will's eyes for some kind of hopefulness, some glimmer of the Will he knew.

"I don't think it will. Not anymore."

Will didn't know how to explain the physical pain it caused him to see Mike laying next to him, full of hope and beauty and life that spilled over, despite everything he'd been through. He wanted that, wanted to feel like that, wanted to be able to fall in love with a girl and kiss her for fun and run through the fields together. He wanted to have his childhood back, more than he'd ever wanted anything, but he wanted more to be able to keep up with his friends. With Mike. With the boy that he'd loved since before he could remember. 

He took a deep breath. "I'm not like you. I'm not like any of you. And it's this huge thing for me, and I don't know which parts of me are him and which are me, and I don't think I'm me anymore. I don't know how to be me anymore."

"Forcing all of us to play D&D is a good start," Mike said, making Will laugh. They rolled on their backs, looking up at the ceiling of Castle Byers, dotted with plastic stars and intercepted by raindrops on their faces. Eyes closed, slowly, they intertwined their fingers, feeling the warmth of each other's hands, the safety of being next to each other. 

"Will?" Mike whispered. "I'm not like them either." He paused, waiting for Will to react, but he was listening, waiting, eyes closed. "And... and I can't even think about losing you. I can't think about it. And I'm so sorry if I've been distant, I was so scared. Will, I was so scared. I thought you were gone. And-"

But Will turned to him, placing a hand on his cheek, startling Mike back into the moment, into the rain and the soaked clothes and Will's dark eyes in front of his.

"I'm not gone, Mike." He said, eyes welling with tears. "I'm right here. Listen to me - I never left."

Never left. The words hit Mike like a ton of bricks. He'd thought about what it was like for Will before, being trapped in the Upside Down, wondering if he would ever find a way back to warmth and Dungeons and Dragons and Jonathan's breakfast and his mom's goodbyes on her way to work, but it had always been too painful. But somehow, tonight, laying next to his best friend, he felt it all. Will had been right there, the entire time. 

Mike searched his friend's eyes, tears and rain dripping down his own face, desperate for something, some sign that what he was about to do wasn't going to make them both implode, dying stars in a sea of fear and tears. Mike didn't even really know why he was crying.

But before he could fully process what he was doing, he was kissing him. Softly, gently, warm and full and tear-choked. Will's hand tangled in his hair, Mike pulling him closer, closer, closer, the rain on their cheeks and in their mouths. Slowly, they pulled away, heads buzzing, breathing heavily.

"What if we just stay here?" Will asked, forehead pressed against Mike's, voice gritty with tears and raw from yelling. All around them, warmth, reminders of a childhood they'd barely gotten to live. Photos from every Halloween and Christmas for years, drawings and fliers and comic books stacked on a tiny side table, tacked up to the wooden walls. "What if we just made this home? And I never move away and you never worry about me again."

Mike just closed his eyes, tears dripping down his cheeks. 

Nothing in his life had ever felt as right as kissing Will Byers.

"I'm so scared, Will," he admitted, eyes closed, nose bumping with Will's as he spoke. Will's hand was still stroking his hair, still shaking with fear and adrenaline and the remains of a tear-stained face. 

"Me too," Will responded, choking on the words, pulling Mike in to hug him closer. "Nothing feels safe anymore."

"You feel safe."

Will kissed him again, breathless.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, laying under the canopy of rain, letting it fall, hands intertwined, feeling everything all at once. Letting themselves get carried away in the tide of wondering what would happen when school started again, when life started again. Letting themselves remember last year, and the year before, and everything that had happened and all the things that should have happened and how they should have just kissed each other sooner, because it was almost too late.

"I should probably go home soon," Mike said, the words a physical manifestation of pain in his chest. He didn't want to leave Will, it was the last thing he wanted. But he had parents who would worry and a bed that was empty, and the sky was tinged the slightest grey at the edges, and he was soaking wet.

"You could stay here," Will whispered, a thinly veiled plea for Mike not to leave him.

"But your mom -"

"Went to bed early last night," Will said. "I'll tell her you came over late."

Mike nodded, and they sat up, stretching their stiff limbs. They stood slowly, Will grabbing his flashlight with one hand and Mike's hand with his other, and they walked back through the woods, rain pouring. When they reached the house, they opened Will's window quietly, taking turns climbing in on the stack of cinderblocks under the glass. They tumbled onto Will's carpet, shushing each other as Will rummaged in his drawers, tossing a pair of dry pajamas to Mike, who crept silently out of the room to the bathroom down the hall.

The pajamas smelled like Will, and they were warm and roomy, flannel pants and a Hawkins tee shirt, just a little too big. Mike dried his hair off with a towel, splashing his face with water. And then, slowly, crept back down the hall to room's dimly lit room, where his best friend was already curled up in the bed. He climbed under the covers, warm and sleepy, and wrapped an arm around Will, feeling his even breathing, the rise and fall of his chest.

He drifted off to sleep slowly, trying his hardest to savor every second he lay holding Will, the rain pattering the window and bringing the hope of a better moment, of a brighter time. But Mike found it hard to believe it could get any more peaceful, or any more heart-wrenching, than this.


End file.
